


you've got a lot of nerve

by cobblestaubrey



Series: c'est la vie [5]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race (US) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27665408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobblestaubrey/pseuds/cobblestaubrey
Summary: "Halfway through their game, Rock dies. The respawn times are totally fucked, but it gives her an opportunity to check her phone.The notification almost gives her a heart attack.Nicky[3:32 PM]can i call u?"
Relationships: Nicky Doll/Rock M Sakura (one sided)
Series: c'est la vie [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979863
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	you've got a lot of nerve

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all let me put a grammatical error in the summary of my last fic and didn't tell me LOL Fixed it tho
> 
> I'm on a writing grind rn and idk. I'm gonna post this. I read over it, actually, which I usually never do, to make sure the pacing made sense and everything mentioned was necessary. Here's the final result.

_“Are you gonna be on later?”_

Rock rocks back in her chair, taking a sip of her _Capri Sun_. “Sorry Widow, I’ve got therapy in an hour.” She finishes her _Capri Sun_ , throwing it expertly behind her towards her trash bin. 

_“Ah, alright, you got until then, though?”_

Rock opens up a new _Steam_ game, and sends an invite link to Widow as she responds. “And after, I won’t be gone long.”

Widow accepts the invite, and it’s on. _“Sweet.”_

It’s days like these - a calm, Thursday afternoon - when Rock feels the most free. She floats through her house like a balloon, cut by its string, gathering snacks and treats before heading up to her room to call Widow. 

Widow’s nothing like Aiden. 

Aiden was the calm before the store, and then she was the storm, too. 

Widow is like the smell of rain afterwards, or the sun just barely peeking through the clouds, letting you know it'll all be okay. They met on a random _Discord_ server, before moving to direct messaging, and eventually Rock was invited to a private group with Widow and a few of her friends.

To this day, almost seven months later, Rock still appreciates the quiet afternoons with just Widow the most. It's full of inside jokes, rants about their days at school, and excitement for the holidays coming up. Nothing beats it, especially when they're also kicking ass at whatever game they're playing.

Halfway through the round, Rock dies. The respawn times are totally fucked in this game, but it gives Rock an opportunity to check her phone.

The notification almost gives her a heart attack.

 _Nicky  
_ _[3:32 PM]  
_ _can i call u?_

“What the fuck?” Rock mutters into her headset microphone.

Widow sounds distracted, and Rock knows her eyes are flying over her screen, trying to find the next enemy to strike down on. _“What’s going on?”_

Rock throws her phone haphazardly onto her desk as soon as she sees that she’s back in the game, positioning her left hand around her keyboard. “Nicky texted me.”

Widow is silent for only a second, swearing under her breath, before responding. _“_ **_Nicky_** _, Nicky?”_

“The one and only,” Rock laughs, still in disbelief. She has no idea what’s happening.

_“What does she want?”_

Rock flickers her eyes towards her phone, and then back to her monitor. “She said ‘can I call you?’, like, she has _never_ called me.” The laughs continue, but she’s not really smiling. 

_“That’s weird as shit.”_

Thank fuck she’s not the only one who thinks so. “Should I? Call her?”

_“What’s there to lose?”_

Rock shrugs, looking back at her phone. “Okay, after this game.”

A few minutes later, Rock and Widow celebrate their victory, and Rock excuses herself from the call. She can still see her last conversation with Nicky, from last school year, remembering how desperate and clingy she felt when she first reread it all, after Nicky began dating Crystal.

Nicky’s never texted her first. Until now.

 _Rock  
_ _[3:44 PM]  
_ _ye i can call now_

 _Nick  
_ _[3:45 PM]  
_ _sounds good mon bébé ;)_

“The fuck?” Rock whispers to herself, immediately copying the phrase to put into _Google Translate_. 

She feels stupid, the translation is so fucking obvious, but it swims in her stomach nonetheless. There’s little time to mull it over, because Nicky is calling immediately.

Her hand shakes, just a bit, before she answers the call, letting the static play out for a few seconds.

“Hello?” she tentatively says into her phone, looking around her room to distract herself.

 _“Hi,”_ Nicky rasps, and it takes Rock aback for a second.

“What’s up?”

_“I want to see you.”_

_Oh fuck,_ Rock thinks to herself. Her heart is pounding now, she feels like she’s someone else, or somewhere else, because this doesn’t make any sense, and she’s _so_ inexperienced.

“Really?”

Nicky's voice is laced with temptation, but she's clearly not beating around any bushes. _“You’ve been avoiding me…”_ she says, and Rock can picture her smirk, clear as day.

“Yeah, well, I mean,” Rock tries so hard to come up with any excuse, but she can’t. She never could. “You’re with Crystal now…”

A pause.

_“I was.”_

“Was…?” It clicks in her head slower than she’d like, but after she realizes, there’s that pang of anxiety again. “Oh! Oh, fuck, I’m sorry.”

Nicky giggles. She fucking _giggles_ , and it digs itself into Rock’s ribcage and into her heart, slamming against it like a drum. _“Don’t worry about it.”_

It’s silent. Things never flowed so well with Nicky as Rock wanted.

“Okay," _Deep breaths, Rock_ _,_ she thinks to herself, "Um... You said you… Wanna see me?” 

_“I want to see all of you,”_ is practically _growled_ into her ear. 

Rock has to physically stop herself from gasping into the phone. 

_There were nights, when her phone was fully charged and her earbuds were in, where she stared at the ceiling, wondering what things would be like if Nicky was hers._

_Her therapist told her that the underdeveloped brain let teenagers do stupid, consequential things because it could, and that Rock could only learn to control it._

_There was no magic pill that was going to make Rock any older._

_So Rock replayed those songs, closing her eyes and picturing the dates she would take Nicky on, even if she finally knew it wasn’t meant to be._

“When?” she whispers into the phone, praying to God that she’s making the right decision for once. 

_“Now.”_

Nicky’s voice reverberates through Rock’s body. Her breathing has picked up, yet all she wants to do is say yes. All she wants is to explore Nicky’s body, and finally, _finally_ be the name Nicky calls in the dead of the night. She wants her name to be the name Nicky sings out, harmonizing with the creaking of the bed frame.

“I…” 

_“I know you want me,”_ Nicky continues, but Rock notices the forgone “too” at the end, even though the missing word drills into her mind. 

Her therapist tells her that maladaptive daydreaming is dangerous and separates you from reality, but at least it’s kept her prepared for a moment like this.

Still… 

“I can’t.”

She tries not to let her voice crack, because it makes her sound like a fourteen year old boy, and she already feels bad enough about herself.

_“Why not?”_

Now Nicky sounds annoyed. It makes Rock clench her jaw and furrow her brows, her eyes glued to her desk. The entitlement boils within Rock, but she keeps her lid on. 

“I have... something,” she answers calmly. _Therapy_ , she thinks, _that I have to get over you._

That’s not exactly true, but she’s not thinking super rationally right now. 

Nicky tsks into the phone.

“Is that all?” Rock asks, maybe a little harsher than necessary, but she’s sick of this shit already.

All she can hear are Nicky’s breaths, slow and steady. She envies her, because Rock’s own breathing is erratic and it feels like she’s going to have an asthma attack. Her inhaler is long gone from her elementary school days, but she longs for it, now.

 _“Yeah…”_

“Okay. Well, I’m sorry. Bye.” 

The end call screen tells her the call only lasted a few minutes. She never really thinks about something like this, about how she would feel if Nicky showed up and offered everything Rock wanted, and she rejected it. 

She stares at her keyboard, watching the last bits of the sun drip down onto her desk through her blinds. 

“Okay,” Rock sighs, pulling herself closer to her desk and unmuting her microphone. “Hey, I’m back.”

 _“What’d she want?”_ Widow asks. 

Rock grins, shaking her head. “Dude, you’re _never_ gonna believe this shit.”

Widow's proud, and she likes to think her therapist will be, too.

* * *

Nicky pulls the phone away from her face, staring out her window as the sun begins to set. She hates the colder months. The sky grows darker too early, and it makes it harder to stay awake. Exhaustion racks her body, making it harder for her to do the things she loves, as there is never enough time in her day. 

Suddenly, her own thoughts manifest into the weight on her shoulders, dragging her down as she walks to the bathroom. Shame drips down her body as she showers, getting ready to sleep at four in the afternoon. 

The steam clears up her nose, letting her breathe and think clearly for the first time in hours, wondering what the fuck she had just done to Rock.

Of course she knew Rock had a crush on her, Rock’s feelings had blossomed like a strike of lightning.

_“Are you going to Prom?” Rock asked, her eyes wide, and innocent, and oh-so naive._

_Nicky’s elbow was on the lunch table, her hand supporting her head. “Mhm,” she had murmured, watching Rock’s eyes flicker around her face. She leaned forward slightly, just to test the waters, letting Rock lean back as she got too close._

_“Cool, cool.” Rock nodded and twiddled her fingers, looking away, before standing up abruptly. “Okay, I’ll see you later!”_

_Nicky watched the girl skip away, and whatever the opposite of graceful was, that was Rock._

_The blonde turned when she heard a familiar chuckle. “That girl’s got it bad.”_

_Nicky laughed, watching Jaida and Dahlia sit down next to her._

_“I think it’s kind of cute,” Dahlia said, gesturing over to Rock’s own lunch table, where Jackie, Rock, and Crystal sat, gesturing wildly about whatever they usually did._

_Nicky looked between the three. Jackie only listened, but Rock and Crystal were both as into the conversation as the other._

_Rock was adorable, with her big grin and bigger personality, contrasted with the quiet voice she always took on when around Nicky._

_Nicky’s eyes could never stay on her for long, though, always shifting over just a bit to Crystal._

The blonde sighed, closing her eyes tight to shake the memory. 

_“She is,” Nicky sighed, watching Crystal listen to Rock. Her lopsided smile was so unnecessarily charming, her wild hair falling just over one of her eyes, and her jeans ripped like it might’ve actually been an accident._

_“But which one are you going home with tonight?”_

Stupid fucking Jaida. 

_Jaida's words echoed through her mind, but as Prom fluttered on, she wasn't certain that either of the two girls would show up, regardless._

_Crystal did, though, and Rock didn't. That made any decision Nicky had easy._

Now she's unsure if she should have ever messed around with Crystal, because falling in love was easier than she thought, and falling out was not. 

Falling out didn't have to involve fucking the girl whose been pining over you for a year, though.

Of _course_ she knewRock liked her. She felt the glares in the hallway as she held Crystal’s hand, and the way Rock refused to meet her eye, and even the sound of Rock breaking her pencil lead when writing too heavily whenever she heard Nicky’s name. Crystal never noticed, but Crystal is also not the smartest person in the room, ever. 

Clearly.

Something had changed in the smaller girl, though, during those summer months away, because she came back as someone else. Someone stronger, disciplined, _happier_ , inside and out, and it warms Nicky inside to think about. 

The warmth might just be the steam.

She exits the shower, grabbing the pajamas she had rested on her sink counter, and counts down the second as she brushes her teeth. She refuses to look in the mirror, instead staring down at her reflection in the faucet, warped and mangled. Weeks earlier, she was hanging off of one girl's arm, while keeping the firm attention of another. Now, her girlfriend - _ex-girlfriend_ \- was long disappeared, probably hanging out with Gigi fucking Goode, and Rock didn't want anything to do with her.

_She could have had Rock, if she wanted. Rock wouldn't have done what Crystal did._

She lets these thoughts sit in her mouth, rolling them around, testing them out, but knows they aren't true. The shorter girl is probably every member of the GSA’s wet dream - with her goofy grin and anime socks, and fierce, unwavering loyalty - but there’s this barrier between her and Nicky, and they can’t get past it.

She doesn’t know why she tried.

Hearing Rock’s voice grow angrier as the call went on was unsettling, leaving her feeling physically ill as she crawled into her bed. She replayed the call over and over in her head, trying to picture poor, sweet Rock, sat in her room, wondering why Nicky would be doing this to her. She has never heard the shorter girl so upset, and to know she caused such a visceral reaction? 

“ _Merde_ ,” she whispers to herself, tucking herself under her blankets. Her phone says it’s quarter till five, but she falls asleep in a matter of minutes, knowing that the sun will still not be up by the time she awakes.

**Author's Note:**

> In this series, parallels are a man’s best friend. 
> 
> These two are more similar than they think, but they’re not meant to be, not really.


End file.
